Biomedical waste, what is that? ask AMC officials

Deputy health officers of the different zones of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) are divided over the issue of whether the reused medicine bottles should be considered as biomedical waste or not. It should be noted that deputy health officer of North Zone, Manish Fancy, sealed the godowns of Ambica Bottle Store and Maharaj on finding empty medicine bottles, while his counterparts in the Central and West zones, Bhavin Solanki and Divyang Oza, refused to consider them biomedical waste.

When DNA tipped off deputy health officer of West Zone, Oza, about two tonnes of empty medicine bottles being stored by a scrap dealer at Vadaj, the sanitary inspector carried out an inspection and declared that the bottles could not be considered as biomedical waste.

Solanki expressed a similar opinion when told that glass bottles found in the godowns were being reused for different purposes after being washed. He said the bottles were clean and had no labels. So, it was not possible to know which medicines were stored in the bottles, he said, adding: "Only medicine bottles used during operations can be considered as biomedical waste."

According to a source, there is a controversy regarding the definition of medicine bottles that can be considered as biomedical waste. However, it was certain that bottles used for pharmaceutical purposes can be very dangerous. "Though these bottles may be linked directly with the hepatitis-B infections, them being reused for pharmaceutical purposes is unhealthy and wrong," the source said.